Why would I chronicle about Afghanistan safely from afar when Biden was aggressively selling his "Build Back Better" program in the Summer of 2021 and people were falling from airplanes?
As an historian, I memorialize what I can and 2021 provided a lot of material. In early 2020, I
woke up confident in certain inalienable protections I’d been granted by nature since birth, then I consented
to wear my mask, and got my three shots to protect myself from getting COVID and to prevent its spread to others before it didn't prevent the spread and I still got it. My experience then and even more now was of a world out of control, made of serious, historical events, ones that increasingly fractured the country in ways I've never seen.
Aside from COVID, the years of 2020-2 went beyond simple change. There were the aftereffects of an impeachment over an anti-corruption phone-call with the President of Ukraine (who still leads that nation, only now it's invaded by Russia one year into the Biden epoch), COVID-era misinformation most commonly put in the form of memes trying to prove scientific things, increased public acceptance of censorship especially on social media despite the most common sense spirit of the First Amendment, the riot on January 6th and a retro-impeachment despite the Constitution, and then the Afghanistan debacle, the second great defeat in American history after Vietnam. After this period of chaos, some things done by us Americans can never be put back into the bag.
In the summer of 2022, the world is on the precipice of two potentially world-ending flashpoints: in Eastern Europe and in the Taiwan Straits. In reference to an expanded Ukraine War or a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, we should beware of the lessons of the recent past:
- Why undermining the Afghan government, releasing prisoners without consideration, and failing to support the national army especially with air support when the Taliban violated the deal, led to the collapse of morale and the rapid fall of the country.
- Why the administration would keep a Trump-era deal with the Taliban without following the actual letter of it, while Biden tore apart almost every other policy of his predecessor. The Trump deal became political cover for Biden's execution of the withdrawal under far worse circumstances.
- Why the inaccuracies, flip-flopping, stubbornness, and blundering of the Biden administration on the world stage made a pre-planned, conditions-based withdrawal into an embarrassing rout with the final conditions of our departure almost exclusively at the whims of different on-site Taliban battle-commanders.
- Why such a momentous decision by our leaders requires just as great a response and justification to the public, especially considering our incredible now-wasted 20-year investment in the conflict, something undeserving of a flippant and arrogant brushing off of legitimate questions.
- A useful investigation like the 9/11 Commission, and unlike the January 6th partisan TV show, where the failures are examined in as objective way as possible. Certainly, almost no member of the past two administrations or the current Congress is neutral enough to stave off partisan taint and grant a real commission the prestige needed.
- How the failures in Afghanistan emboldened the decisions of America's rivals in just one year since August 15th, 2021, the fall of Kabul.
So, stubbornness proved to be a worse approach to foreign policy than blustering our way through, as evidenced by the lack of aggression from our enemies prior to August 2021 and the head-in-sand, no compromise approach to withdrawing US presence from Afghanistan during that summer. And I am jaded not just with our obstinate and unavailable leaders or their reflexive media supporters, but with our own people who had they historical and civic training might be courageous enough to demand better than what we got: like millions of dollars of operable military equipment dumped on the side of the road, the bombing at the Kabul gate killing and wounding dozens, an innocent family blown up and called terrorist masterminds, or babies being flung over a fence to try to get them out.
Domestic political consumption is largely composed of an uninformed and ignorant American public that frets when it sees terrible footage, but often doesn't know how to change political, military, or diplomatic leadership because domestic partisanship from both sides obscures necessary truths to make an informed decision. Yet, this lack of interest jeopardizes American interests abroad, smacking them in the face only when an event, like the killing of 13 soldiers, suddenly appears before them like some demonic phenomenon. They simply want out of confrontations, unwilling to sacrifice blood and treasure after rubber-stamping the decision-makers of the past. Forget that the world has been aflame and people are killed in extremely violent ways from East Africa, Yemen, to Burma.
For our interests, Afghanistan mattered not just in that we left, but in how we left. There is an obligation after all the death to say something a little bit more than just enough to avoid serious political blowback. This need to inform others of the truths is what drives me, even if only a few people view it or the burning sarcasm seems off-putting to those that always toe a partisan line and go back to believing all is chipper in Biden's (or Trump's) Afghanistan.
So, I approached this enfolding story not as some neophyte who was suddenly made aware that Afghanistan existed. Instead, I was informed by 20 years of watching the issue, starting on September 11, 2001, when I was sitting in my dorm room waiting to go to my political science class on terrorism. Generally, I supported ending American involvement, but only if it was calculated, careful, and didn't result in pulling the plug on the government's forces before they were ready. That action transpired in April and May of 2021 when the national army realized there would be no backing under Biden, no air support or direct US involvement, so they fled the field, precipitating total collapse.
Having watched the "War on Terror," Iraq, and Afghanistan carefully, I was severely frustrated and angry at the handling of the retreat as I was at many times after 9/11. The flashbacks came quick and I didn't even serve in the war or suffer really. After all, I stayed comfortably at home merely studying. However, I didn't like seeing our country's people and resources throw into a toilet while our leaders merely went on vacation or declared some kind of bizarre victory. So, I wanted to share my experience even if it was a few online posts.
My journal posts on social media to chronicle the desolation:
August 15th, 2021:
(On the fall of the capital, Kabul)
GG Afghanistan. Well done Administration over there at the vacation home in Camp David! What’re we fixing next? With the brutal and repressive Taliban triumphant after 20 years, women finally set to be back to the early Middle Ages, and thousands of freed Al Queda prisoners all in the rear view mirror and ready to celebrate the 20th anniversary of 9/11, can we now focus on here at home and stopping those pesky freedom things from holding ourselves back in the Neanderthal era? Can we finally police the masking or punishing of vaccinated or COVID-surviving/immune, healthy individuals? I say there’s nothing we can’t do if we put our people to research it while in month 17 of this success. Even if it takes 18.5 more years to reach the Afghanistan level of success only here at home with COVID, anything is always worth a try.
August 16th, 2021:
(Weapons and Biden's Foreign Policy Experience)
A real, epic disaster! You don't often get to witness the destruction of a nation simply by a superpower voluntarily leaving in haste, but here at home we have our own safety problems, so if we can just get healthy little Jimmy to not have to be asked to wear three masks while staying behind a plastic shield or if we can just stop complaining about what he/she/they are or aren't "learning" in that virtual classroom. At least Obama's alleged saying that "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f... things up" will be proven wrong now that Biden is returning from his vacation retreat, providing strong leadership after we hear his speech today, and maybe even him personally rescuing the panicking people falling from our helicopters and planes, that weren't going to be needed according to Joe like they were in 1975 Saigon, Vietnam. It will be okay.
Since May/June, Joe never really wanted those provincial capitals, Bagram airbase, a treasure trove of abandoned weaponry, Al Qaeda and ISIS prisoners, the capital city, an allied/non-extremist government, allied interpreters and friends now being rooted out door to door by the Taliban for beheading, Afghan women, our Kabul embassy, our flag raised instead of lowered, the safety of American personnel, the blood invested over there etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. Supposedly with more troops headed there making a combined total of troops greater than at the start of the hasty rout he imposed a few months ago against almost all advice, we got the better end of this bargain. It will be okay, this is where Joe's experience and specialty comes into play, especially considering the one agreement from the last administration that he decided not to rip up (with the Taliban), or when he's the "last one in the room" and an important decision has to be made, right or wrong or stupid. We will be safe, somewhere, don't worry.
August 17th, 2021
(On Biden's Afghan speech)
What a speech! He said the buck stops with him, and I think we need to just accept his word once again like when he said the country wouldn't ever fall because of our training and the technology that the Taliban now are using. I admire his truthful consistency like when he told us if we go get the shot, we wouldn't have to wear a mask. But medical and military problems change so he's right on top of both issues even if there was an away message at the White House all weekend.
On everything else, he didn't say anything that he might have gotten even slightly wrong other than it being a mild surprise, like covering your eyes and saying boo to a baby or jumping out from behind a door to give a mild scare to a cognitively dysfunctional old man in a way that doesn't provoke a heart attack. So maybe, he was only very slightly surprised at the speed of the collapse he initiated 5 months ago. Lay off him folks.
All blame is accepted by him, except for everything being Trump's fault because Biden didn't like the managed withdrawal deal with the Taliban from 2019-2020, but unlike "Remain in Mexico" concerning COVID among foreign nationals at the border and every other other Trump-era deal he shredded without regard for what was in them just because Trump negotiated them, he decided to keep this one that he specifically disliked.
Because he decided to stick with the disliked Afghan deal anyways, it took courage to decide in April that we're leaving some landlocked place far away, and difficult logistical decisions have to slowly be made about the people still there and he shouldn't be rushed into planning to get them out once the troops were gone that rather easily defended our interests before.
If 3,500 US troops and the US airforce can hold a country together prior to June and lose no provincial capitals or Kabul or our airbase at Bagram or our embassy or women or our allies, I can think of no better way to leave Afghanistan without taking a humiliating "L" than to increase and not decrease US troop presence to about 7,000 after already leaving, even if temporarily, and then to beg, I mean negotiate, with the vicious Taliban victors to play nice as we huddle at a part of an airport to continue unplanned evacuation while they start the beheadings and start distributing child brides to their men.
It's better that we have more soldiers over there now that the country is lost rather than leaving behind a force that's barely 1/10 the size of US forces protecting South Korea since 1953 in that other forever war. Better to lose a country in the worst way possible so Biden doesn't have to oversee another forever war or leave it to a fifth president since hundreds of thousands of troops are permanently deployed all over the world going as far back as 1945, doing soldier things like the small force was in year 20 of the Afghan conflict.
Maybe Biden is on to something about having no troops anywhere, and that will come as a pleasant surprise to China as it eyes Taiwan and its increased doubts on whether US forces will help defend the island as it has promised to do since 1949. I'm sure the rather successful SecDef, SecState, and the Joint Chiefs can find better things for fighters to do here at home short of unemploying them. Teach them things about our terrible history instead of military science to inspire them to fight and possibly die for it, even though we don't seem to have the attention span to fight for our interests anyways, or ordering them to get the COVID shot without clearing up lingering mistrust from the Anthrax shot debacle? Seems like a better thing for our employees to do than being paid to fight.
In short, I think we need to accept our leader's expert, sound military logic that it's better to redeploy in the middle of a nightmare than to hold on in an earlier, better position. It all takes courage and people just need to adjust their thinking if we're going to be mentally ready when our weakness invites terrible nations to advance in the wake of our departure. Americans are tired, maybe from reading my lengthy congratulations, and Biden is too, so I just wanted to write how courageous and well-executed this all was.
Have a nice day (while we still have them)!
August 18th, 2021
(It's Rude to Question A Leader in the Middle of Losing A War)
Gosh, can't they just stop yelling (rude) questions at Biden about Afghanistan? I was going to stop posting, but it got me so mad seeing those disrespectful, logical questions. The press conference was about COVID only and we know there aren't supposed to be real questions about that either, so what are the origins of this sudden journalistic nerve? The real experts are in this for a little while at least and if they can just survive hostile territory and go on an unexpected journey to their potential rescuers before the firm deadline of August 31st and before being abandoned to torture and murder and then provide some answers to the administration at a debriefing, then Biden's people will let us know months later what's really going on on the ground among those that barely made it to the finish line.
Perhaps if reporters would just send some favorable comments in the form of a politely worded voicemail to the White House's or State Department's answering machine, they'd get an adequate response whenever deemed timely. And I really don't get why people put so much pressure on them when they put "a lid" on answers to reporters or simply walk away from the press like today, something that these ungrateful press should understand since it was acceptable to them throughout the 2020 campaign (because: "Drumpf").
And let's be honest, do we really value answers to tough questions by government secretaries unless they lead off by saying something is "personal to them" while providing as little as they want afterwards. Even without any valuable information, an empathetic statement is all I need! Today, I got just that and I really felt better about their decisions because they said they felt something too.
Just take Brian Williams and other "journalists" as an example when they rightly labeled Biden's speech yesterday as a strongly worded, courageous, and principled statement about withdrawal. Spot on! Or imagine the benign deference of one of the thousands of hostages cowering outside of the Kabul airport tweeting a plea to anyone on Twitter, maybe even to the Taliban spokesman to let them in for a flight to American "freedoms" because both tweets fit within Twitter's terms and conditions as a private company? That's how tweets are done folks! Could a banned Drumpf after January 6th or Biden's ridicuously hostile interrogators learn a thing or two? Indubitably!
And for those complaining about the State Department not adequately or urgently processing the papers of those trying to flee, drowning them in a sea of red tape, likely because they burned the evidence of American collusion in case they're caught, just remember that we haven't even fully implemented NYC's segregation plan to have vaccination cards and photo identification IDs (NOT for voting, double emphasis added) checked for the un-vaccinated, especially adversely affecting minorities should they wish to be permitted to enter restaurants in areas where they live in large numbers. It's just one city so far, but hopefully everywhere soon, so give SecState Blinken some time to process the desperate people being beaten or shot for entering the relative safety of half of Kabul airport! If DeBlasio is leading the way on IDs in NYC by denying unvaccinated minorities dinner at a sit-in restaurant, Biden can't be too far behind in vetting those desperates in Afghanistan 6,600 miles away who want in to our country-with some conditions!
This had to happen and at this press conference, Biden is simply trying to give the same amount of moral strength to rejecting questions about Delta as he did to the past 5 months of horribly mismanaged withdrawal. This is "personal to me" so I have no other answers other than to politely beg the press to leave Joe alone and let him solve COVID by some arbitrary and politically advantageous deadline and maybe think about Afghanistan's next deadline if he's ready and willing after vacation.
August 19th, 2021
(Foreign Policy Expert, Joe Biden, Questioned by Ignorant Amateur in an Interview)
God, forgive me if I'm wrong about [this], but why is George (Stephanoplous) now all of sudden going so unnecessarily hard against Biden, after they had such a great relationship before? As Biden said, people stopped dying or falling off of airplanes to escape to our COVID-era "freedoms" a long 4-5 days ago and no one's being killed right now. Who knows how many people are trapped throughout Afghanistan in jeopardy waiting on further text messages from a State Department that is known for having a missing Department Secretary and for being absentee, but Biden says at least they're not dying over there, which is great comfort, and that should be enough for me, a self-described news amateur, or anyone else not working in Biden's difficult role.
Even if the amount of contact with those left behind is unknown, let alone their specific fates while being forced to journey unprotected to Kabul airport, then why can't George just recognize the President's desire to pick up the pace of withdrawal regardless of the consequences since Biden knows the dying ended? If it happened days ago, even if it was always going to be this chaotic in Joe's careful mental planning of the operation over many months, the deaths were "priced in" and were probably going to be over with at some point if a President says so, so why should either man worry about it? Who is George to question him about this or get that unnecessary COVID question in at the end?
He ain't a doctor or a President so just let Biden speak. Come on man! It's about empathy, folks, and I think Joe knows better.
August 20th, 2021
(Timeline of Afghan Defeat, Samples from Declassified Report, and a Template to Question Failed Military Leaders)
- Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), their viability as a US-trained, superior-to-the-Taliban fighting force, especially considering the advantage Biden gave to their "air-force" over the Taliban's non-existent one prior to their seizure of those planes and helicopters with the country (pgs. 63-81)
- The peace plan and relations between what Biden characterized as the strongly-backed Afghan government (now defunct) and the Taliban (pgs. 83-88)
- strong indications in July of the impending human rights disaster especially for refugees and displaced persons, especially women after US withdrawal, that Biden at least "priced in" to his withdrawal non-strategy (pgs. 90-91, 105-109).
- Maps and other information considering the rise in opium production, the sales of which increases finances to the Taliban and correspond in increase to the control of provinces by them, and which may lead to a spike in supplies of Opioids in the US where the problem is already a significant crisis. Biden factored this in also so the main entry points for opioids into the US through ports of entry and at the Southern border will be addressed by the President and especially Vice President Harris already tasked with some things soon enough, we can presume (pgs. 98-105).
- COVID in Afghanistan, dismal vaccine numbers there, and how it won't be a problem with a large refugee influx into the US during the Delta wave if Biden and Faucists have anything to say about it (pgs. 141-147).
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